Colossal Understatements
by MoonyAddict
Summary: Tonks is binging with chocolate because she misses a certain werewolf, rain is pouring and someone is knocking at the door. But it can't be 'him'… Of course not. [RemusTonks]


Comfortably ensconced on the sofa in her sitting room, a particularly moody Nymphadora Tonks stuffed a rich handful of chocolate pops into her mouth and, hastily turning a page of the book in her other hand, she crunched it scornedly. This was definitely one of the loneliest and most squalid nights of her last fifteen years.

She was done with the crying, at least for today, but the Kleenex box – lying among several balled up used tissues – was still on the coffee table, at arm's reach, just in case.

A particularly violent storm was rampaging outside, leaving her pleasingly cuddled under a fluffy pink blanket, and yet feeling so cold.

Not even caring to pay attention to the lines her eyes were reading through, she turned another page, a huge stuffed wolf struck under her armpit, and gulped another handful of chocolate, just listening to the pouring summer rain.

It was already midnight when her hand dove into the bowl in her lap, seeking for more pops, and found it empty. A vague panicking sense took over her, as if now the chocolate was over, something horrible could happen any moment.

_Damn you, Remus, this is all your bloody fault! __I refuse to believe I've developed an addiction for chocolate…_

"It's a luck it's finished, at last, you know." Said a voice from above of her. Tonks looked up to find the portrait of her Great Aunt Antares Black glaring at her severely from behind a pair of shiny spectacles. "No decent Pureblood will want a fat pink-haired wife, you know, missy?"

"Oh, shut up!"

Tonks smacked a cushion against the portrait (getting Great Aunt Antares to go away, oozing indignation), and pushed away the empty bowl and the book, ending up hugged to the stuffed wolf, even more dark-mooded than before.

She caught a glimpse of her own reflection in the mirror across the room, and she nearly squeaked out at how horrible she looked.

Her hair had been that stubborn shade of greyish brown for weeks now, and no matter how hard she would try, it just wouldn't go.

_All credit goes to R__emus John Lupin, for his latest outstanding performance in 'The top 100 things that make me absolutely not suitable for Nymphadora Tonks'_.

Her eyes – which happened to mirror perfectly the cloudy colour of the sky – lingered on her pallid skin and unusually sharp cheekbones. Her face didn't look like a heart anymore.

_A broken heart, perhaps_.

A thunder shook the glasses of the two large windows at the sides of the empty fireplace in front of her, and she winced uncomfortably. Ever since she was a child, she had dreamed of a man who would hold her and rocked her through nights like this, a kind and caring man who would kiss her temple and run his fingers through her hair while lying with her in the golden light of some candles.

_Buggers, hadn't realised before how ridiculously naïve I am_.

She bit the blanket between her teeth, trying her best – but blatantly failing – to keep her thoughts from slipping into a heavenly delusion in which a very well known pair of strong, warm arms would enlace around her and just make everything alright.

Her eyes were already fluttering closed, ready to drag her down into one of those harmful – but, oh, so wonderful – dreams in which Remus told her he'd been a fool all along, trying to deny how deep and wild his feelings for her were, when she had the impression to hear someone knocking at the door.

"Mmmh, leave me alone." She muttered, pulling the blanket over her head, by no mean inclined to welcome any undesired visitor (which was to say _any visitor_).

But the faint knocking insisted, and in the end Tonks forced herself to crawl out of the blanket and carry herself to the door, cursing between her teeth whoever it was on the other side.

She swung the door open, ready to kick away anyone who'd had the bravery to come and disturb her in her love mournings.

"Get your bloody arse away fr –"

She froze dead in her tracks as her brain registered who was standing right before her. Soaked from toe to head with cold rain, wearing the sweetest smile she'd ever seen, was none other than the cause of her depression (not to mention chocolate binges), more commonly known as Remus Lupin.

Feeling a crazy burning sensation around her stomach, Tonks prompted an awkward smile – which she was sure looked terribly fake – and gulped back the part of the sentence she – luckily – hadn't had the chance to utter.

_This is awfully embarrassing_.

"Good evening, Tonks." He greeted, with his heart-melting polite tone.

"Wotcher, Remus." She replied, stepping aside to let him in, desperately hoping he wouldn't notice she was slightly jittery. No, _very_ jittery.

Remus, however, didn't seem to catch her nervousness, and was staring at the ground with a peculiar uneasy expression that Tonks couldn't quite explain.

"Is everything okay?" she inquired, worriedly. In the meantime, another not so irrelevant question popped out in her mind.

_What are you doing here, at past midnight on a Friday _–_ no, Saturday night, exactly?_

Remus cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"I hope I did not awake you?" he said tentatively, his look venturing for a fleeting moment over her body, and it was only then that Tonks realised.

Horrified, she gazed down at her completely naked legs, the rest of her body scarcely covered by the white – and therefore dangerously transparent – T-shirt she used as pyjamas.

"Uh," With her cheeks burning, she started pulling the shirt down, as if it trying to lengthen it. When she rose her eyes again, a faint, affable smile was painted across Remus' lips.

"I seem to have a perfect timing for improvised visits." He said apologetically, now looking way more relaxed than moments before, and this seemed enough to calm Tonks down herself.

"I was just – ah –" She reckoned that saying she had been sprawled on the sofa with a huge bowl of chocolate and an arm wrapped around a soft plushie _randomly_ named Remus was probably not a very brilliant idea. "Reading a book."

Remus' look roamed past her toward the centre of the room, where she knew he would find the empty bowl and an undetermined amount of kleenexes, scattered here and there in bunches all around the room. It was a bad habit, but she'd been crying so much, lately – and all because of him – that keeping the house tidy had become the least of her problems.

"Would you like a… Cup of hot chocolate?" she offered, gesturing for him to take a seat.

Remus hesitated, casting unsure looks at his robes, dripping water all over the floor.

"I'd love to, but –"

"Don't worry about that," said Tonks dismissively, pushing him toward the sofa and literally forcing him to sit down. She grabbed her pink blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders, still wondering how exactly she had ended up from mulling into self commiseration to sitting by him, warming him up with her favourite blanket.

"Better now?"

Remus nodded, and gave her another smile.

"Much, thanks."

_Cripes, Remus, say that again with that face and I might just jump you right here and right now_.

She groped over the couch in seek of her wand; in the process, her fingers accidentally skimmed his tight, causing her to flush furiously, eliciting a muffled laugh from him.

"Gotcha!" she exclaimed at last, and immediately pointed the want to the coffee table, where a tray with two steaming cups of boiling hot dark chocolate appeared, along with a small plate full of very delicious-looking cookies.

_Wow, I'd never managed to do so good… Last time I tried I could only make a cup of tea…_

"Help yourself."

"Thank you, Nym – _Tonks_."

Tonks flashed him a wide grin, which he returned while raising his mug for a toast. She watched him take a small sip from his chocolate, utterly delighted by the way his lips touched the dark blue china, gently brushing against it as he drank.

To her own surprise, Tonks found herself fuming with envy.

_Am I kidding? Me, jealous of a stupid mug? This is ridiculous…_

Determined to quit planning the cruellest destruction of a relatively innocent mug, she decided to satisfy another urgency.

"So, er… What brings you here?"

She'd had to ask. She was dying to know what had led him here, and, as her mother had always said, curiosity was Tonks' worst weakness.

Remus licked his lips – _oh, Merlin, I might faint on him in this very moment!_ – and pressed them together, taking his time to answer, as though he wasn't so sure himself about what to say.

"Would you believe me if I said I felt lonely?" he sighed eventually. It took Tonks all of self control giggle.

_If I would believe you? Geez, Remus, as if there was somebody more lonely than you, in this world…_

Suddenly a thought she hadn't yet considered kicked in.

"You felt lonely, and you came… To me?"

It sounded wonderfully flattering.

Apparently a bit taken aback, Remus took another sip from his mug and shrugged.

"I thought maybe you'd be feeling lonely, too?" he said tentatively, arching his brows, but Tonks smirked.

_How very diplomatic of you, Lupin, seriously…_

"I'd say you kinda got it right." She shrugged, too. "But, well, this makes me look a bit uncaring, really…"

Remus raised a brow quizzically.

"I didn't take the disturb to get my arse out of here to come knocking at your door under the storm of the century, did I?" Tonks bit her lower lip, now actually feeling a little guilty.

Remus shook his head indulgently, his wet hair falling at the sides of his face, tickling his cheekbones and chin in a – there was no other word to describe it – very sexy way.

"It's not like I expected you to, anyways."

He had Tonks wrapped around his finger enough for her to catch the bitter shade in his tone; to be absolutely honest, it made her pretty angry to see he thought she didn't consider him worth a shower.

"Don't talk rubbish," she said indignantly. "You'd have me around twenty four hours a day, if my presence didn't disturb you so much."

Remus inclined his head in her direction, a vague smile tugging at the corners of his lips, and Tonks brought her hands up to her mouth, only then realising what she'd just accidentally let slip.

"Wh – what I meant is –"

"Your presence doesn't disturb me, Nymphadora." She graced him for calling her by her first name, mentally erasing one of his three daily bonuses. "You just… Distract me."

"So you came here to be distracted?"

"You'd be offended if I said yes?"

Tonks jiggled her head. It wasn't like a real compliment, but she knew she couldn't expect anything more explicit from him.

"I'd be… Confused." She finally reached out for her own mug, but just held it between her hands, staring into its depths, wishing he could read her mind, because explaining was beyond her possibilities – at the moment, at least.

"I am so selfish, aren't I?" said Remus with his most disarming calmness. Tonks spun her head toward him. That wasn't the answer she had expected.

"Selfish?" Her jaw dropped. "_You_?"

"Well, I drop by in the dead of the night without even announcing myself, steal your blanket and sit back on your –?"

She watched as he brought his arms behind his back and took something. Remus the stuffed wolf was now face to face with its human twin.

"That's my favourite sleep mate, Rem –" No, of course she couldn't tell him she'd named a plush after him, nor that she used to talk to his furry surrogate before drifting into sleep and kiss him good morning and goodnight every day. Not a chance she would. "Rembrandt."

A surprised expression spread across Remus' face, then he turned to the wolf again, wide-eyed.

"You named your stuffed animal after a Muggle painter? I'm impressed."

"I, uh… Am a big fan of Rembrandt, you see."

_If only I __could remember what the hell he painted…_

"It smells nice." Remus noted, caressing the furry head of Tonks' wolf.

"Excuse me?"

Remus looked at her, never dropping his brain-tilting subtle smile.

"It has a nice scent," he explained, tapping the plush between its ears. "It smells like you."

According to the way his eyes flashed away in no time, Tonks realised he must have put his foot into his mouth. She grinned knowingly, shifting closer to him, by now thoroughly forgetful of her once hot chocolate.

_So you think I smell nice, eh? I so busted you, Remus Lupin!_

"Of course it smells like me." she said, grabbing the wolf from his hands. "You'd smell like me, too, if you slept with me."

She heard the words drain out of her mouth without being able to stop them.

_Buggers, did I really say that?_

Next to her and her horrified face, Remus was wearing a blank expression that she couldn't read. Maybe he hadn't caught the-

"Did you really say that?" he asked slowly, and she could easily spot two curls fighting to bend up the corners of his mouth, and right there, at the sides of it, a couple of oh-so-adorable light lines formed.

Tonks licked her lips, picking at her wolf's ear. Damn, she _loved_ every single thing in this man.

_As if it came as __a very big surprise…_

"Now I understand why you don't like to have me round," she mumbled, fiddling with Remus-Rembrandt's tail. "You never know what sort of embarrassing stuff you might let out when there's someone who distracts you nearby."

Out of the corner of her eye, not daring turn or lift her head a single millimetre, she saw him nod vehemently.

"Precisely my point." He agreed brightly, but Tonks had the sensation he was just mocking her.

She was going to snap at him with something very witty, when she noticed how close they had ended up. She couldn't even turn her face, because that way they would be practically kissing. It was frustrating how she was totally overwhelmed by his presence, while he, so calm and relaxed, seemed to be the master of the situation.

A little disappointing thought hit her: if he was so at ease, then maybe he wasn't _so_ distracted by her.

"Why don't you like me, Remus?" she asked out of thin air. Remus gaped at her, his mouth stuttering in daze. Tonks thought she had quite a talent for off-putting questions.

"Why don't I _what_?"

"You heard me." she said, still refusing to look at him, but Remus did one of the few things that could change her mind: he placed one hand over hers.

"I do like you, Nymphadora. I really do." He stated, then made a pause to observe her intently. "More than you can imagine, to be honest. More than I can afford." he added when he'd faced away, letting out a light sigh.

_He called me that again… That makes two, already. What the heck do I have to do to make him- Wait! Wait wait wait… Did he just say _–

"You really… Like me?"

He laid his empty mug on the coffee table and rested his head back on the sofa, inhaling deeply.

"If we want to use a colossal understatement, then yes, I do."

Tonks swallowed, not entirely convinced she wasn't just imagining it.

_Has he gone mad all of a sudden?_

After all, how could she be certain it wasn't only one of her fantasies? There was nothing that could confirm it was all real.

_Well, he's __fully clothed… Almost_.

Her glance fell on the few delicious inches of naked chest visible thanks to his partially unbuttoned – _wet_ – shirt, and she agreed with herself that he was definitely overdressed for a dream.

He rolled his head in her direction, arching his brows as if inviting her to express her own opinion, but truth was that Tonks was currently too busy in being genuinely and dramatically shocked to formulate anything, sensed or not.

"I believe you should make some sound while moving your lips, you know?" he quipped, but Tonks wasn't amused. It was Remus' speciality to laugh over anything serious – and, above all, compromising – he said.

Tonks jumped on her feet, her lower lip trembling slightly.

"You can't spat something like this and then expect me to say some bloody thing!" she yelled, not sure if she was angry or terrorised by this unforeseen blurt of honesty of his. "The mere thought of you makes my rationality take off, what do you think I am able to do in this moment?"

She was panting, feeling the heat rising from her neck to all over her face. Remus, on the other hand, seemed to be quite enjoying her reaction and was smiling soothingly up at her.

"What's that face?" she snapped, crossing her arms over her chest, causing liquid chocolate to splash all around – which included the carpet, the coffee table, the sofa and Remus' clothes.

"Merlin, I'm so sorry! I'm such a disaster…"

She grabbed a couple of kleenexes from the box, glad that she hadn't taken it away, and frenetically started cleaning his robe.

_If only Mum had taught me some of her tricks to clean this off __with a wave of wand…_

"Don't worry, it was my secret dream to be showered with chocolate by a pretty girl."

Tonks was so stunned to hear that, that her hand seized his shirt a little too energetically, and a couple of tiny buttons bolted away. Had she had anything into her mouth, she was ready to bet she would have choked on it to death.

Amazingly enough, anyway, Remus was tee-heeing from beneath his hand, vainly pressed over his mouth to suffocate it.

"You are smudged with chocolate." He said as his laughter fizzled out, pointing at her face.

He had already placed his hand on her cheek when Tonks realised her hands were still blissfully resting on his chest and her brain had done no bloody thing to bid them to wipe the stain away.

"Do you have any clue of how long I hadn't had a hearty laugh like tonight?" he asked her softly. "And by laugh I mean a true one, not just with my mouth, but with – with all myself."

However mesmerised by his speech and the beauty of his eyes, however enraptured by the shivery pleasure of feeling him so dangerously close to her – so _tempting_ – Tonks somehow managed to muster up a whole sentence.

"And you like me because I make you laugh? Because I ask embarrassing questions, pour hot chocolate over you and rip the buttons off your shirt while trying to clean it off?"

"Yes." He brushed a thin lock of lank mousy hair behind her ear, smiling. "And because you are young, and fresh, and so beautiful… And above all," His thumb lingered on her cheekbone as her heart pounded crazily in her throat. "Because you always remind me how being alive feels like."

It was too perfect to be true, it was just too much to be truly taking place. Tonks was sure, now, it was definitely _not_ happening.

_This is when I wake up, I assume?_

Feeling herself blush furiously, Tonks returned the smile feebly.

"Sounds cooler if you put it this way."

Remus nodded, tittering low in his chest.

"Doesn't it?"

They were just too close, now, and Tonks' head was spinning under all this emotional overload. She would have exploded, or so she felt like, if Remus hadn't removed his hand from her face – leaving her a little disappointed.

"Forgive me. I'm being inappropriate." he said quickly, putting on a blue apologetic look that Tonks had – unluckily – well learnt to recognise.

_The __Not-Good-Enough-For-You look_. _That bloody, stupid look_._ Again_.

He was about to pull away – and likely stand up – but Tonks wouldn't let him go, not now she had found out how good and _damn right_ it felt to stay so close together.

She grabbed him by his shirt and kept him sitting, silently begging him with her eyes.

_Merlin knows what colour they are now… I lose any control over metamorphosing when it comes to him_.

He looked uncomfortable, but even more than that, he looked seriously battled between giving up and staying, and playing the selfless hero and just leaving.

_Please… Please, don't leave_. _Can't you see – can't you feel? – how perfect it is?_

"Let's not ruin everything," she whispered, cuddling herself against him, his arm pulled on her shoulders. His clothes were still moist, but he was wonderfully warm. "Let's just stay here like this for a while, just because it's nice."

"Nymphadora, I don't think –"

She pressed her fingers over his mouth, shutting him up brusquely.

"I am displeased to inform you that you've just burned you last daily chance to call me by my first name. And it's barely half past midnight, you see." she conveyed in a professional tone. "You will now have to stop rambling and savour this beautiful moment."

Remus didn't ask what she was talking about. He watched her from above for a while, sitting rigidly, still looking like he would stand up from a moment to another; then, right when Tonks had started feeling discouraged, he finally relaxed and rested his members against the couch.

Without a word, he pulled the pink, fluffy blanket from his shoulders and shifted it to cover both their bodies.

"You really don't care about how harmful I could be for you, do you?" he said, his chin placed on top of her head.

Fully immersed in what she hadn't yet been able to classify – a tremendously realistic dream or a heavenly reality - Tonks barely shook her head, basking in his embrace.

"If we want to use a colossal understatement," she answered, closing her eyes with a radiant and lightly mischievous smile. "Then no, I don't."

And even if she couldn't see it, the happiness she felt in her heart told her that her hair was now a perfect match for the blanket she and Remus were lying under.

_And in the__ morning you'll smell like me, too._


End file.
